Lady parts
by Backpack backpack
Summary: Tails is a GIRL?
1. one

The dawn of a new day crawls over the mountains in the horizon as Tails absentmindedly pokes at the dying flame's embers with a stick, glancing at Ari putting on his jacket from the corner of his eye.

"Time to go?" he asks, redirecting his focus back to the firepit. Not wanting to be caught looking at him for reasons he doesn't understand.

"Good a time as any," Ari says from his peripherals.

Tails sighs. He knows Ari is already gone, he just doesn't exactly want to face it. Maybe that's why he can't bear to look right at him, he thinks to himself. "I wish I'd gotten to know you better."

"You knew me 'bout as good as anybody else," he says, stuffing his things into his bag and tossing it over his shoulder. "Better'n most."

"That's tragic." He looks at his own feet. Tosses the stick into the pile.

"You'd know all about that."

An audible gulp. "It's gonna be bad when I wake up, isn't it?"

"Bad as you make it."

"Ha. You're full of shit and you know it."

A laugh that's almost a sigh. "Yeah. Worse. Try not to let it take your future from ye, if ye can."

"If I have a future."

Pause. "If you have a future.."

"I don't know if I can make it without you, Ari. Not through this."

"Made it fine without me before."

"Your expectations of me are way too high," he says, burying his face in his palms. "I'm not as strong as you think I am. Everything's gone to shit and I can't hack it."

"Stronger than you think." A hand on his shoulder. "You aint never given yourself no credit."

"Is this even coming from you? You're dead. Patting myself on the back isn't getting me anywhere. Fuck." He drops his hands and looks straight ahead. The sky is brightening.

"If'n you's the one saying it, it'd be a bigger step than it would comin' from me."

"Fuck," Tails sighs, wondering if he'll feel this way or even remember it later. He won't.

"You'll make a fine woman someday," Ari says.

"Excuse me?" He looks up, tries to look at Ari but Ari is missing. Vanished without a trace. And that's when he notices the screaming and the gunfire echoing through the forest. 

* * *

Lady parts 

* * *

"He's opening his eyes, doctor," the high pitched rasp of the smaller figure notes.  
Two silhouettes standing tall above him on either side and the brightest light he's ever seen. One bigger than the other.

"That's normal," the low growl of the larger shadow says. "I didn't anesthetize him."

Tails gurgles as he squirms, violently responding by thrashing against his restraints on the metal slab.

A sinister chuckle. "Is he in pain, doctor?"

"I imagine, yes. Very much so."

Tails is choking, heavy breaths escaping his throat carrying the hint of a whine, a stutter. "Ah~ ah~!"

"He's trying to say something, doctor."

"Ignore it. We've got work to do."

"Chances of him dying before we finish our work?"

"Slim. His vitals are good, everything in functioning order. He'll survive it, but it will be incredibly painful."

The silhouette of a very long and jagged knife between them, above him. His eyes roll into the back of his head. 

* * *

Vultures circle above as the sun peeks over the horizon, slowly spreading light and warmth across the desert. Eyes weakly opening to the blurry encircling shadows of inevitability.  
Not today.

Flashes of darkness, true darkness cutting into the creature's perception. The song of the void. Has it always been there, so clear?  
Wheezing and smacking the fox tries to generate moisture in its mouth. A cough. Rolls over, hands to knees, knees to feet. Bones sore, skin taut at the seams. Stretching. Tearing.

Awareness of the physical pain, too distant to consider emotion. No time for weaknesses, fragility. Move forward. Body dragging itself, shambling like a reanimated corpse as it begins to understand once again how to walk.

Eyes dart around. Assess the surroundings. Blinding light slips through the cracks of the city, thinning the shadows, stretching them.  
Gravitate towards the cliffside of the canyon on the opposite end, towards the great forest.

Stop. Somehow the truck is still on fire. Still burning. With Ari inside it? Tails ignores a deep sadness. Watches the smoldering wreckage disintegrate into nothing. Checks shoulder, follows strap. The shotgun.

Thumbs the release to the side, breaking the weapon open.  
Two shells. Check.  
Two shots.

Without thinking the barrels dig themselves into the creature's chin. Eyes tightly shutting.  
Encouraging whispers from the void to cut things short.  
Avoid more suffering.  
Embrace the inevitable.

Sacrifice.  
Sacrifice.  
Sacrifice.

The hammers click back and a moment of silence. Finger on the trigger, an ounce more of pressure to obliterate the skull.  
Finger on the guard.

The weapon lowers, resets. Drops to hip level, dangling. Sigh crashes through lips and clenched teeth.

Move forward. 

* * *

His eyes trying to escape this field of vision. Cornea scraping against the metal clamps holding his eyelids open. He watches the robots harvest his friends. He screams. Louder.

Blunt metal tearing away fragile mobian flesh. Cracking through bone as though it were brittle and dry.

Your future, they told him.

Desperate, clawing for life.

The future, they told him.

He screams with his friends, watching them. Metal violently tearing through flesh, through organs, through bone. The screams.

Rising in pitch, his voice tears through his voice box, through his throat.

His words escape him. This isn't fair. He begs for help. Clawing against his own restraints. A god finds him and all is not well. 

* * *

A fire crying out to the night as one had ever seen. The plucked strings of a slightly out of tune banjo over the soft cackling of the flames consuming the firewood slowly, quietly lure Tails into what he feels strongly for unknown reasons is a sanctuary.  
The glow warm and inviting in the shadows of the trees. Dead leaves crunching under worn sneakers.

Tails sits down and watches this weasel as he pulls the brim of his hat downwards and leans closer, still picking away slowly, hauntingly at the instrument with his fingers. A glimmer off the one tooth that gives us a smile.

"Fang," he says, offering a quiet, familiar nod.

Tails eyes him critically. A soft rasp with a familiar flavor. "What are you?"

The weasel nods to the canteen at his feet, by the log he now sits on. "Why don't you take a drink? We know you're thirsty."

The hands snatch, fingers trembling subtly as they unscrew the cap. Nostrils flare above, widening and closing while sniffing the fluids in the canteen. A desperate laugh before a sip. Higher than it should be.  
Desperate gulping. A satisfied sigh.

Coughing. Wheezing.

"What ARE you?"

"I'm not unlike yourself," the weasel laughs. "We are the chaotic element."

"Right," Tails laughs. "You are guidance and mystery. I've heard this story and don't very much care for it."

Fang's namesake glistens in the firelight as a sly grin spreads across his face. "What are you? Surely you've died."

"In a sense."

"Dying, maybe. A song for the void."  
A flame of a different sort dances somewhere within those eyes underneath the brim of that hat. Hypnotizing, Tails would later note based on vague memories of this.

"Fang," Tails says quietly.

"Tails," the weasel replies, his attention back on the banjo in his hands. Irregular rhythm sends a chill up the spine. Tails shivers, pulls the comfort of the vest tight.

"How do you know my name?"

"You can hear it, can't you?"

"Hear what?"

"The void," he says. "It sings to us, doesn't it? Maybe more of a hum. One would think it recently awakened but it's always been here. We just weren't listening."

Tails doesn't say anything in response. Just stares into the fire between them.

"That god that took your loved ones from you. You wanna kill him?"

"He's no god," Tails says sternly.

"You sure about that?"

A solemn nod. "Dr. Ivo Robotnik is human. Human's not god. Human can be killed."

Fang snorts. "Robotnik? You mean Kintobor. The god of artificial life."

"You give that sack of shit way too much honor."

"And who taught you gods couldn't be killed?"

The silhouette of the fat man, distorted in the heart of the flame. That long, jagged knife.

"Mortals have become gods before. A mobian, banished to the void by the very one who stands to destroy you mentally and physically."

No words. Just emotion. 

* * *

Eyes wide, bruised black dark circles outlining them.  
Feet drag. Body propelling itself.

Operating on base instinct. Survival.

The voices whisper of their suffering. Unintelligible hushed shrieks telling stories of being torn apart at the soul. The spirits haunting the creature every step of the way, especially at the hanging tree.  
Daunting lights of Knothole drawing Tails in.

A hysteric laugh dies in the throat of the collapsing fox.  
A shamble to a sprint, a sprint to a shamble, a shamble to a crawl.

The desperate attempts of the fox to claw and drag the way home come to an abrupt and ironic end at the first glimpse of hope.  
But the dragon noticed, as the dragon does. 

* * *

"Is she okay?"

"Who is that?"

"It looks like Tails, but like. A girl."

"She's wearing Sally's vest. Maybe Tails saved her?"

"You think Tails found a girl fox with two tails and saved her and gave her Sally's vest?"

"Well it can't be Tails. Tails isn't a girl." 

* * *

"I killed it, it's not too much to ask that you skin the fucking thing," she says, exhausted, dropping its hind legs as soon they reach the outskirts of the campsite.

"I dunno howwww," Fiona says, following suit with the front legs, its limp head lolling around limply until it lands akimbo on its side. "Besides, you're so good at it. You wouldn't want a botched skinjob."

"That's not-" Nicolette rubs her eyes in frustration, "exactly how it works."

"Exactly my point. YOU know how it works. YOU should skin it and cut it."

"Five minutes," Nicolette sighs as she removes the rifle from her shoulder and collapses against the trunk of the tree, pulling her hat down over her eyes. "I need a rest."

"Hurry up, Nic. I'm hungry."

"If you're hungry, skin it your damn self. I'm tired."

"Bitch."

Nicolette grins toothily - particularly toothily. Her fingers lovingly graze the rifle in her lap. She fondly remembers the shot she took at dinner. Poor fucker didn't know what hit him, and then he was dead. She knew it was a him because she could see its furry balls poking through the backside of its hind legs. "You love me."

"You know I do."

Nicolette is struck by a jolt of surprise just as she's dozing off by the weight of her partner's body sitting down on her legs, scooting up and pushing the rifle towards her body. Her eyes pop open as Fiona plucks the hat from the top of her head and put it on her own. She grabs the rifle from between them and obnoxiously poses with it.

"What are you-"

"Look at me," Fiona says with a deep voice, purposefully mocking Nicolette. She pretends to aim through the scope at the campfire, posing, her finger on the trigger and her head sliding back and forth.  
"I'm Fang the sniper. Wobwobwobwobwob."

"Hey, idiot. Trigger discipline."

"Why? This thing's got a safety, right?"

"Safety's goddamn irrelevant. You keep your fucking finger off the trigger until you're ready to shoot if you have a brain in your head."

"Oh, and you have a brain in your head?" Fiona scoffs, setting the rifle down next to them, leaning it against the side of the tree. She lifts the brim of her stolen hat and leans forward. "Why don't you show it to me?"

"You know stealing my hat is a punishable offense, yeah?"

"Mmmm," Fiona leans in closer, closing her eyes to kiss Nicolette softly. "You, punish me? What a laugh."

Nicolette kisses back and kisses her again, her hands almost timidly crawling to her knees, up her thighs and to her sides, pulling her gently but firmly in slightly closer, looking up at her.  
Looking up at Fiona, she breathes out happily and she can't help but smile.

"You big dumb idiot," she laughs.

"Heyyy," Fiona says, nuzzling her softly, her eyes closed. "You love me, too."

"I suppose I do," Nic says, closing her eyes as well. "I suppose it's okay if you wear my hat."

They kiss again. 

* * *

When Tails wakes up she still doesn't know she's a girl yet. What she does know, however, is that everything hurts.  
Every muscle, every sore bone. Just opening her eyes sends shockwaves through her body, a warning against moving at all, but she fights it still to roll over onto her side.

A crippling reminder of her humanity as her arm shoots for the canteen on her nightstand before studying the weight distribution by shaking it.  
It's relatively full. She scrambles with the cap, setting it on her nightstand and ravenously sucking the contents from the container. The grunts of a desperate animal as she drinks the water inside. Setting aside the canteen, she collapses back onto the bed and stairs at the straw ceiling. She tries to soften her breathing, because her body feels like it's a giant bruise as far as she's concerned.

When she closes her eyes again she can smell rotting flesh. Her eyes pop open again and she sucks it up as her body lights up in pain when she tosses the covers off her body and forces herself to get up, crying out in pain as she catches herself on her desk and chair near her bed.  
A few deep breaths and she's convinced herself that it's not as painful as it is.

Noticing Sally's vest on the back of the chair she's supporting herself on, she awkwardly picks it up by the appropriate armhole and slides it onto her back. Transitioning her weight over to the other arm, she follows suit with the opposite side, whining in pain as she pulls her vest around her shoulder.  
She looks down as she pulls it closed and her eyes widen in confusion. Breasts...?

Yelping, she ignores her pain as she rushes out the front door of her hut, leaving it ajar.  
Twilight. The sky is grey, the dying light hanging over Knothole village almost like a fog. No sunset.

Sprinting past the fountain and down the trail to the pond. Onlookers stopping what they're doing to stare in confusion at the panicked fox as she speeds down the path. She reaches the ring pool, collapsing at the edge of it to catch a glimpse of her vague, rippling reflection.

A high pitched scream echoes throughout the village and the surrounding forest. 

* * *

"You're not the first of the doctor's experiments. You think I was always like this?"

"No idea."

"I was born Nicolette. Nic. I thought it would be funny to change it to Nack, all things considering."

"Nicnack. I get it."

"I was always a sucker for wordplay."

"I was, too," Tails says distantly. "What are you haunted by?"

"Voices, mostly. The screams of the dead."

"The ones you've seen die are the loudest, yeah?"

"Yeah."

"One stand out?"

Nack's fist tightens and he stops playing for a moment - "yeah."

Tails doesn't ask for their name. She knows it's burned into the back of his eyelids. She knows there's no escaping it. She doesn't need anymore names, anymore ghosts.

"You're not the first to try and kill him, either," Fang says.

Her ears perk up and she looks over at him and he stops playing. Setting the guitar down on the ground and leaning it against the log he sits on.  
Leaning forward, elbows on his knees, he stares into the fire.

"The ones you love are with you," he says. "They're suffering, but they're with you." 

* * *

There are four steps to firing a bolt-action sniper rifle once the magazine has been loaded.  
Cock. Load. Lock. Fire.  
Nack pulls the lever towards the sky, catching it with his palm and pulling it back - cocking the weapon.  
He pushes the lever forwards, loading the round into the chamber.  
Fingers quickly pull the lever down into place as his eyeball coordinates the trajectory of the bullet, steadying the weapon as he locks the rifle.

Drawing in a deep breath, he eyeballs his target, carefully adjusting the sight into focus.

"Kintobor," he breathes to himself. "You got fat you miserable piece of shit."

Wordlessly the weasel takes offense to the fucker laughing. Laughing. That worthless blight on this planet finding joy in anything is enough to make his skin crawl. The dot at the center of the scope centering in on his forehead. He holds his breath. He speaks, his eyes watering, he can't help it.

"Don't worry, Fiona. His death will be painful." Blinking the tears from his eyes, he readjusts carefully and squeezes the trigger, savoring every ounce of pressure against his pull.

The sky cracks and the bullet tears a hole in his throat. Four steps to firing the first round. Eight steps for the mechanism to fire the second one. Usually Fang the sniper only needed one shot, but he wants to make sure.  
Unlock the mechanism by pulling the lever up. Extract the casing from the chamber by pulling it back towards him. The gun spits out the casing and the spring in the magazine feeds the weapon. The weapon is cocked, the cartridge is loaded, the mechanism is locked into place. Another round is fired as the mechanical god's head splits apart. Violently spilling oil and electrical sparks and currents that fill the air like flames ignite the fumes of gasoline.

There's a finality to the release of air Nack lets from his lungs - or maybe that air is taken from him. One can never be too sure.

A sentinel stumbles in the current, in the outskirts of the great forest of Mobius. This is the first time this has ever happened.


	2. two

The butt of the gun cracks the top of its skull and it caves in like a melon. Concave and gushing. He is screaming. Brain matter clinging to his rifle.  
That thing, still laughing. Cackling madly as if there was no such thing as pain.

It's not you it's not you it's not you.  
Screaming into himself, he desperately tries to drown out the voices.

He brings the rifle down again. And again.  
Every single time the empty weapon connects, more of him is lost.  
Laughter transitions to gargling. Eventually, silence from the creature.

Sobbing, exhausted, he collapses. 

* * *

The cocking of a rifle and cold steel digging into her neck snaps her back to reality.

"You put your hands behind your head and I mean forthwith." A familiar voice. Antoine's. "Forthwith!"

She can't see his reflection in the ringpool but she knows he's there. Slowly, nonthreatening, she complies. The wrist irons tighten around her left arm, clicking and locking into place. Her left hand guided downwards behind her back by the chain, her right with the muzzle of the rifle. The other cuff locks around her right wrist, linking them together.

"Rise," Antoine says, not waiting for it to register before pulling her up by the chain.  
Tails struggles to her feet, stumbling, almost losing her balance. Antoine lets go of her and backs up a step. "Turn around."

Tails meets his gaze from behind the rifle. She notices the safety is off and Antoine is practicing poor trigger discipline. Her third eye screaming. She says nothing.

"How did you escape?"

"Escape? I don't-"

"Silence. Rotor." He calls behind him. "Rotor! Approach promptly! Forthwith!"

A moment. The walrus, approaching. "Y-yes sir?"

"Did you restrain this woman?!"

"Sir, I didn't think sh-"

"Fie! A fetch I wish to not hear!"

"We confiscated her weapons. She hasn't hurt anybody, Antoine."

"That you're cognizant of. I told you to restrain her to prevent any and all incidences."

Rotor doesn't say anything. Tails doesn't say anything. Antoine sighs and nods towards the path back up the hill.

"Move," he says. 

* * *

Antoine almost pushes Tails rather than guiding him into the seat in the tent in the middle of town.  
The entrance flaps still swaying about.

"Hostility, eh? That's how you're playing it?"

"You approached armed."

"No ammo."

"Donning our dearly departed Princess Sally's vest."

"Which I left in."

"Not a soul saw Tails leave, or Ari for that matter. We've got nothing to go on but the word of that dragon."

Her sarcastic sneer reforms into a deadly serious frown. "What have you done with her?"

"Done with her? Excuse me, we don't lock up residents the same way we do impostors."

Tails sighs, leaning back against her hands into the seat. "Look, let me talk to Dulcy. She'll straighten this whole thing out."

"Oh? And what doth she know of your magical sex change, Miles Prower? If that ist who thine be?"

"Yeah," she laughs bitterly. "I'm Miles Prower. She knows me. She can-"

"I'll not hear it," Antoine says, cutting her off. "I'll not have you brainwashing our citizens with your nonsense until I've gotten to the bottom of it! Do you understand?"  
Suddenly, an alarm goes off. He double takes through the flaps of the tent. "Stay here if you value your life."

Before she can even respond he's scurried through the tent's flaps, leaving her alone in the darkness. She notices the coach gun in the corner, and before too long she starts hearing gunshots. 

* * *

There's a moment that never happens, but there's a dream.  
The way Dulcy holds Tails is motherly and nurturing.  
No matter the crisis of identity Tails was undergoing, it was always endearing to be wrapped in her tail. Watched over. Cared for. There's a moment of vulnerability that parallels her childhood. She's not cognizant of it when she wakes up. She doesn't remember any of this.

A piano is struck playfully in the distance and she finds a comfort in uncertainty.

There's a knock on a door that she can't remember the last time she felt comfortable knocking on. Her knuckles withdraw timidly but she's met with warmth.  
Only in this dream that she doesn't remember. 

* * *

"Tails?"

"Hrm?" he looks up, puzzled.

"You sure you have everything?"

He stops for a moment. She stops for a moment. 

* * *

Burning hot oil splashes against her face as she stuffs the shotgun into the robot's chest and unloads both barrels. She screams in anger. In pain.  
She tries to remember they're just robots no matter how much they scream like her friends, alive or dead.  
Empty shells eject from her weapon as she stuffs in two live rounds and blowing the sides out of a Sally look-alike that's assaulting Antoine.  
Callously, she picks up his assault rifle and tosses it to him. 

* * *

Not even the neck of a dragon takes well to plasma. When Dulcy starts choking on her own blood, her final decision is to take as many of them out with her as she possibly can.  
That's probably what makes Tails lose it. She's lost any and all opportunities to speak with her in the future and she knows it.  
She's on her own before she even has a handle on herself. 

* * *

Shells fall into the bag, One hand holding the bag open the other hand casually tossing the shells in. It all starts to feel a bit disingenuous.  
The planet skips but the sentinels have yet to fall. She rushes out of Ari's hut and towards the defensive line. 

* * *

Sonic's door opens and he drifts out like a ghost. His pallid skin hanging from his bones as he no longer has meat or blood - just ragged flesh hanging from a rickety structure that floats along the ground.  
Under his skin in five places, emeralds glow different colors.  
The sentinels crashing to the ground sends tremors that knock everything off balance.  
Tumbling down. She recovers on her belly, the wind knocked out of her. Struggling to breathe. She crawls towards the remains of what she tries to recall as a friend.

The fastest thing alive ironically eludes her at such a slow pace.

Time's not exactly frozen, more like a forming glacier.

Light shines brightly, warmly from under the skin, discoloring it. Shadows of bones.

Trembling hand reaching outward. 

* * *

Pulsating wires and veins latch themselves to the base of Robotnik's chair and quickly infiltrate the integrity of the floor beneath him and the ground well beneath that. The very building his corpse resides comes to life in a most unnatural way.  
Sludge leaking from its circulatory system. Language defies it, for at first it speaks with pure id. 

* * *

It's not a slug, it's creation, she thinks to herself as a brief glimpse of the puddle of all flashes before her eyes and she holds her breath.  
Awkward and broken, she can empathize. Instinctive hand unknowingly reaching towards it.

There's rain and there's blood in the future. She can't tell how much of it is her own. She embraces the crumbling earth. 

* * *

It's the foot of a dead dragon that sends her along her way. Crashing into the warmth and the light and the cold harsh ground. She can hear the gurgling laughter from the neck of the dead dragon as her decaying head finally meets the ground. Upside down, eyes still staring.

Soaring through the air, she claws at the light.

Air escapes her.  
Tails is pretty sure her ribs are broken. Her screams, along with her body, are enveloped in the light. 


	3. epilogue

The desolate streets are quiet except for the howling wind. Disrupted by boots grinding loosened rocks against the pavement.  
The shadow of a wanderer makes its way across the street towards the corner. She stops at a vagabond cat, asleep between two trashcans under a blinking neon sign. Not meaning to disturb it – just admiring the simplicity of it all.

After a brief moment she turns and walks to the entrance, opening the door and closing it behind her. Her footsteps intruding on the silence of the tavern. Boards creaking conspicuously under her steps.  
Bartender sees her coming a mile away. Few other patrons spread out among the shadowed tables, keeping quietly to themselves.

The bartender blinks. "You lost?"  
Don't think so, she says.

Hand emerges from under her tattered cloak to move her goggles from her eyes to her forehead. She sits at the stool closest to the confused badger. He blinks again.

"Sure is dangerous around these parts," he says.  
Can be.  
"What's a pretty little thing like you doing out here by yourself?"  
She rolls her eyes. Lookin' for someone. Maybe you can help me.  
"Is that so?"  
Mhm, she says. Why don't you fix me up a glass of ale, bartender.  
"Sure thing, ma'am," he says, fetching a glass. "You got a name?"  
Yeah.

Angling the glass to minimize the foam. He sets a full glass of beer down in front of her.

"You gonna tell me what it is?"  
Maybe. She closes her eyes and takes a long sip. What's yours?  
"Jeffrey."  
She sets the glass down on the table. Jeffrey, you got any beds available tonight?  
"Sure thing. We don't get much traffic out here. Just barely enough in trade to keep ourselves afloat."  
Good. I'll need a room. I'll be heading into the city in the morning.  
"The city? Lady, I can help you with the room, but this is about as far into the city as I can recommend going before it gets dangerous."  
Looking for someone. Kintobor. You heard of him?

Jeffrey's eyes widen. He doesn't respond.

You look like you've seen a ghost.  
"Lady, you can't certainly mean-"  
I do mean. I'm looking for him. Supposedly hangs out around Lower Moebius. You know how to get there?  
"Ah," he stumbles with his words. "Lady, listen-"  
Tails.  
"Hrn?"  
Name's Tails. She takes another long sip of her beer, almost draining the glass. She wipes her mouth with the wraps on the back of her wrist.  
"Tails. Kintobor IS Lower Moebius."  
Excuse me?  
"The sewers are alive. And the deeper into the heart of them you go, the more likely you are to get swallowed up. Nobody gets far down there and comes back. I mean nobody."  
I aim to try.  
"I can't in good conscience send you down there to die."  
So don't. You aren't sending me anywhere. Just tell me where to find it.  
"It's a maze down there. You're going to need a schematic just to know where to enter the sewers and viably find an open entry to Lower Moebius."  
You got one laying around?  
"I don't-"

Tails sets a gold coin on the counter and slides it towards him. His eyes widen again.

"Miss."  
Tails.  
"Tails. Right. Sorry. Look, we get a few copper a day from the regulars here, maybe a silver every now and then. I don't have change for this."  
Keep it, she says nonchalantly.  
"I can't accept this," he says in disbelief.  
Sure you can. You're helping me and it's all I got. You get me a schematic of the sewer system, and a room and a beer when I get back and we're square.  
"When you get back."  
When I get back.

He sighs, rubbing his temples.

"Look, I'll help you. But I'm telling you, it's suicide and I really don't feel good about this."  
Don't feel bad about it. You didn't make my decisions for me.  
"I guess I didn't. Now, look, there's something else I need to tell ye about the city before I-"

The door opens and it cuts the bartender off entirely. His expression drops.  
She notices this and drops the rifle strap from her shoulder and places the weapon between her knees. Under the bar.  
He quickly snatches the gold coin off the bar and pockets it. He moves over to a different spot at the bar. Three canines enter the room. All carrying weapons on the belts at their hip. Two of them fall back, surveying the area, while the other appears mighty friendly.

"Howdy!" the dog says with a smile on his face.  
"How d'you do," the badger responds.  
"Oh, I'd be a lot better if you'd give me my fuckin' money," the dog says, grabbing the bar and leaning against his two hands.  
"Look, I have your money," he says, nervously digging in his jacket. He produces the gold coin. "How long does this cover me for?"  
The dog grabs it and speculates. "Where in the fuck did you get this?"  
Jeffrey freezes up. "C-customer."  
"What the fuck did you give this customer that was worth one whole gold piece? Hrn?"  
"She j-just gave it to me."  
"She?" Tails catches the corner of his eye and he starts chuckling. He turns and strides his way down the bar. He hangs on his elbow, casually facing her. "Hey darlin'. You handing out gold coins, is ya?"  
She finishes off her beer and taps on the glass. She nods to the bartender to get her another one. Not to you.  
He laughs at this. "Well, ain't you sweet." He puts his hand on his pistol's grip. "I think you're more charitable than you give yourself credit for."  
Tails spins around on her stool to face him. They're just about nose to nose when she stands up and he feels two barrels of a shotgun pointing downwards into his stomach. And how about I just blow your guts through your asshole instead?  
His brow furrows in response.  
I mean it. One move and I'll cut you in half with this thing.

As the click from the right side of her waist registers in his ear, he looks to his companions.

Tails pulls the trigger.

* * *

Big casually picks up his cigar cutter off one of the tables and holds it in the hand opposite his cigar.  
He paces the room, licking the back of his hand and wiping it against the fur on his brow.

"Interesting thing, to think of just how far we've come these past two years, isn't it?" He snaps the bottom off the cigar and lets it drop to the floor before biting down on the newly cut mouthpiece with the corner of the back of his mouth. "Dead getting up and about. Population thinning. What was once a lively and thriving city reduced to a graveyard. Stragglers and looters digging up corpses and setting them on fire. Both figuratively and literally. Happy shitting, indeed. I used to have to hide from people like you. And Froggy? Forget it. Out of sight, out of mind. Betrothed to the gutter, unseen and unheard so you can go on living your happy fantasies of sunshine and rose-scented turdlets. Oh no. Not I. Not Froggy. But Froggy tells me it's better now, yes sir he does. Froggy tells me it's better now."

Muffled whimpering sings to him. Froggy whispers. He lights the cigar.  
Flame flowering out from the center of the end of the cigar to its edges until it is burning bright and hot.

Smoke. Lots and lots of smoke.

"I once knew a filthy piece of shit, kinda looked like you. Froggy, too, as Froggy knows everybody I know." Froggy floats in a jar of formaldehyde on the counter behind him. He continues pacing. "I liked him. He was real filth, let me tell you. He'd peel the skin off his dad's nutsack for a copper and a shelled peanut, and let me tell you, brother. He was allergic to peanuts. Now, I notice you noticin' me talking about him in the past tense, like he was dead or somethin'. Keen eye. Sure enough, he's dead. Dead like you'll be. Not yet, but eventually. Y'see kiddo, we all die eventually. However, there is one thing the two of you will have in common. I'll have had a hand in it. As much as I loved that filth, it's not exactly the most loyal of servitude you can ask for. I fed him his own intestines and I stabbed him in the face, I did. And Froggy watched. Froggy watched because Froggy wanted to watch because Froggy told me to do it, didn't he?" He looks at the jar. "Didn't you?"

He looks back at his prisoner tied to the chair and gagged. His personal guards waiting patiently and silently behind him. "Froggy's telling me we've got special plans for you. Don't you, Froggy? Don't you tell me those things? Tell this man. Put his mind at ease." he's speaking through clenched teeth and drool is running down his face. As he approaches. "Can't you hear him? Can't you hear him putting your mind at ease?"

Wide eyed and frightened, terrified and unsure what to do. The prisoner nods, sobbing into a mouthful of rag duct taped awkwardly to the back of the rat's maw. He nods, uncertain. Eyes leaking, fur soaked.  
"Mmmhm?!"

"Mhm indeed you little fucker," he says, forcing the rat's pinky out of his fist and fitting him gently for the cigar cutter. A simple snip and an eruption of noise.  
Wrists digging into the wire restraining him. Breaking more skin.  
Big replaces the unlit end of the cigar with the bloody end of the finger and his mouth lights up with the taste of coppers. He places the burning end of the copper where the bloody end of the finger used to be and the screams get louder. He bites down on the finger and as the screams get louder he spits it out and puffs on the cigar, assuming the wound has been cauterized.

He dances to a song that only plays in his head. Waves one of his guards over and asks him close to his ear, still dancing "where are my dogs?"  
"Extorting the inn down the street sir."  
"Goode!" He does a spin. "They'll be back before I'm done with you," he says, nodding and pointing at the screaming rat in the chair as he comes to a dead stop. "Long before Froggy tells me how to-"

* * *

As the buckshot tears through his midsection and drags him to the floor she drops the gun to hang on its strap and brings her other hand around to steady her drawn .357.  
Shots firing before she can. Bottles shatter around the bartender as he ducks down behind the bar. She catches the dog's face in her sights and closes her left eye and pulls the trigger. A slug tears its way through the corner of her mouth. Tearing away her cheek. Revealing her teeth. Lodging itself in the back end of her jaw. The one goes down and she locks in on the other. Click. Fire. The mist of his brains clouds around him and trails his body down to the floor like a burst can of spray paint.

FUCK! more a sound than a word emits itself from her damaged, bleeding face. She holsters the handgun and her right hand follows her left palm to her face. Fuck. she says again for good measure.

Jeffrey's eyes pop open behind the bar. His hands covering the back of his neck. Face on the floor. He looks up.  
Planting his fingertips carefully on the glass covered floor in front of him. He gets up.

It had all happened so fast.

"Holy shit lady, are you okay?"  
Fine, she says. Still alive.  
"You killed them."  
I did. Do you have any tape.  
"Sit down, I have sutures," he says, digging under the bar for the first aide kit.  
She replaces the empty cartridges in her weapons and discards them.  
He digs out the slug wedged into her cheek with a pair of needle nose pliers. After disinfecting the wound, he awkwardly digs the needle into the flesh remaining on her face. "Some of your teeth are just going to be showing now," he says.  
Fine.  
"You seem awful calm about losing your looks to a bullet."  
Aint got much use for 'em.  
"Fair enough."  
There gonna be more coming?  
"You'd better believe it."  
I'll wait. You'll tell 'em where I'm sleeping. It's the least I can do.  
"If you say so."  
Wouldn't much figure you for a doctor.  
"I'm not," he says, cutting the line. "My medical knowledge reaches the extent of basic field medic."  
Sounds lucrative.  
"I don't do what I do for money, miss. Just enough to keep things running."  
Doesn't seem to stop others from trying to cut in.  
"We live in a cruel world."  
That we do. Do you have any fishing line?"  
"I do."  
Bullets?  
"Not much but you're free to take a look at what I have."  
Hammer and nails?  
"You plan on renovating?"  
Something like that.  
Jeffrey sighs. "I could get killed for this."  
Tails sets a small handful of gold coins on the counter between them. I know, she says. I'm sorry.

* * *

Tails helps Jeffrey dispose of the bodies in a dumpster out back. They set them on fire and make sure they're burning right before turning in. Making sure they don't come back.  
After, Tails has another glass of ale before retiring to her room. She drags the bed over to the corner adjacent to the doorway and fashions her shotgun to the bedpost. Thumbing the hammers back. She routes fishing line around the trigger and hammers the other end into a taught line at the frame of the door. She removes the mattress from the bed and sets it in the opposite corner.  
She checks the chamber of her repeater by half cocking the lever. Loaded.

Tails lays down next to her rifle, hand on the strap. The revolver tucked away into the belt she's still wearing.  
She closes her eyes and drifts off to sleep.

* * *

She has a shovel in her hand for some reason.  
People tell her what a wonderful job she's doing.  
They pat her on the shoulders and they tell her it's alright. That she did good and that they're proud of them. Trembling under the weight of consolation.

Fearful of emotions she herself doesn't understand.

The tears she is so afraid of are freed from the prison of her face. They drift to the sky, she thinks to herself even though they don't.

She reaches upward to a star blinking out of existence. A star that blinked out years before she noticed and now, now she knows the star she took for granted.  
And as she grips her shovel tightly in two hands gravity brings her down to her knees and she tries to catch her breath.

But there in the hole is Sonic, Sally, Dulcy, Ari. She gets back to her feet. Still crying. She feeds the earth back to itself one spoonful at a time.

I wouldn't become time, Tails, one of them says.  
I wouldn't become vengeance either, says another.  
We move forward. That is all.

Her head hurts, even in the dream.

* * *

The door to the inn opens and Jeffrey tenses up as Big the cat and his two scat cats follow in closely behind.  
That's what he calls them. His scat cats.  
He must have a terrible sense of humor.

Big snips a cigar with the cutter and leaves the butt to drop on the floor.

Jeffrey anticipates a thousand things that don't happen.

But Big lights the cigar and approaches the bar. He smiles between a giant gap between the teeth on the top of his jaw and the bottom of it.  
He fills his mouth with smoke and spits it into Jeffrey's face.

Jeffrey coughs.

Big stands up straight before drumming the bar and standing up straight. "What's his name?" he asks, turning around to one of his scat cats.  
"His name is Jeffrey."  
"Ahhh, yes." he says turning his attention back to Jeffrey. "You must be Jeffrey."  
"I am, sir."  
"I did not want to meet you. Froggy didn't want to meet you." he says fingering backwards at the scat cat holding the jar at heart level. He nods towards the bar. "Say hi to Froggy, okay?"  
"Okay," Jeffrey says. "Hi Froggy."  
"Froggy wants to know if you've seen some hounds lately."  
"Oh," Jeffrey shudders, almost relieved. "I've seen some hounds here. I paid them and they met a lady, they took her up stairs." he says nodding towards the staircase nervously. He forces a laugh. It's almost believable.  
"Oh?" Big questions him gleefully. "Pray tell, into which room did'st mine men take thine lady?"  
"Last room on the right."

Big scoots one of his scat cats up the staircase with his gesturing fingers.  
The pointer and the middle.

The scat cat hikes the staircase and Big leans in close to the boy. Jeffrey.

"So, you run this bar by yourself, do ya?"  
"I do."  
"Do you know that you owe me money?"  
"Yes, I gave it to them. I gave them the money."  
"Yes, but do you know that you owe me money.  
"S-sure."  
"I'll get the money somehow."  
"Yes."  
"What do you think about Froggy?"  
"Uh. Excuse me?"  
"Froggy likes you. What do you think of Froggy?"

The conversation is disrupted by a very loud gunshot. Big turns around to check but his other scat cat is headed up the hallway. He turns his attention back to Jeffrey and draws his 1911 from the inside of his coat's breast pocket and points it at the ceiling. Hanging on his elbow.

"What kind of music do you listen to?"  
Jeffrey blinks. "Excuse me?"

More gunfire.  
A shot a fraction of a second after a shot.  
He cries out "Skitters are you alive up there?" There's no answer.  
Big fires his gun arbitrarily through his understanding of the second floor.

After awhile more guns fire. It just kind of happens and someone dies.

* * *

Tails beats a dead to redead with a dislodged lead pipe segment. Then she beats that horse to death.  
There's not too much that happens between her and the sewage she has to wade through.

* * *

Flesh and veins pulsate the sewers,  
It's a loud coughing reaction as the protagonist walks in.  
The whole worlds coughs and she's flat on her ass, the pipes pulsating around her.

* * *

Kocc mo ureik 0eih wet.

Eih wet xujd'k mudavojkot akjocv ad jisx ud idtohjkudturco sufusak0 0ok.

A't mubo jiho A taot rik kxo tout uchout0 tat kxuk.

Udt 0ei ned'k, dek 0ok. Kxoho'j cekj ev houjedj 0ei vuac.

Ebu0. A sud hojfosk kxuk.

Udt 0ok A xulod'k vehwalod 0ei veh kxuk edo kamo 0ei juat AIDS ad sxihsx. No fhokodt kxuk teojd'k opajk.

Udt doakxoh te 0ei.

Udt doakxoh te A.

Nxoho aj wet, A ujb.

Kxo0 kocc mo xo'j u fittco udt kxuk'j ucc kxuk mukkohj. Kxo wet feec. Kxo feec ev wet. A vadt m0jocv houskadw ke ak laecodkco.

* * *

Joob kxo mummekx. Joob 0eih ehawad. Mubo Mobius whouk uwuad.


End file.
